Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Thank you for everyone who purchased t-shirts...I am sending in the order this week. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the support! I will send in another order if there are enough requests (I need at least 24).

We have everything completed for our Home Study, which is a HUGE blessing. I think we will probably receive the completed product from our Home Study agency sometime next week.

Still no denial letter from the USCIS, so as soon as I have our completed Home Study, I will send it to the USCIS. They will send us our 171H form, which is the last piece of the puzzle. Then everything goes to the Secretary of State to be certified and then off to our adoption agency in Virginia.

I have been working in the dorms on the weekends and tutoring after school. This schedule is perfect! I am bringing extra income to fund the adoption, I have time to get all of our adoption paperwork together, and I have the same days off as Chris. God has been so generous in answering our prayers...

Chris has been busy, busy, busy - working full time in the dorms, working on his Master's degree (including preparing for his thesis), and teaching at Cabrillo. It is a blessing that I am not as busy, because he is crazy busy. He could use your prayers...

Friday, October 12, 2007

And the list goes on...these blessings that I am about to share have happened within the past 2-3 weeks...

Almost as soon as we shared our news about starting this adoption journey, my mom and stepdad graciously contributed a large amount to our adoption...they are pretty excited about having grandchild #1...

My dad and stepmom (who are also excited about grandchild #1), after reading about how we would possibly have to refile with USCIS and pay the filing fee again, sent us a check to cover the refiling amount. This after we had just prayed and lifted the situation up to God to work as He pleased. (By the way, no denial letter from the USCIS yet - we are sending our marriage certificate and it will arrive Monday am...maybe we won't have to refile!)

This next blessing is financial, but also a huge help to Chris' career as a teacher. Last weekend Chris' boss was coaching a little kids' soccer team. The son of the Head of English Dept. at the local junior college plays on this team. So "randomly" the Dept. Head mentions to John (Chris' boss) that they are looking for someone to teach one of their English classes because the professor became ill or something. John says, oh by the way, I know a great English teacher (I am paraphrasing here). Phone numbers are exchanged and passed onto Chris. To make a long (but short, all of this happened in about 1 week) story short, Chris is now teaching an English class at Cabrillo College. For those of you who are familiar with teaching at the college level, these things don't happen like this. We are a bit stunned...it never crossed our minds that Chris would be teaching at the college level within the next couple of years, let alone within the next week.

There you have it...the Reno saga continues. Every life is a story that is being written by the Master Storyteller...more to come, I am sure...

A man in our church kindly offered to connect with his sister who works in the Vital Statistics office, to try and help us in some way to get our marriage certificate. We were so blessed that these kind people offered to do what they could. The sister made some calls and was told that it wouldn't be ready until December.

A couple of days ago, when Chris and I read her email communicating this, we were faced with 2 choices. Either throw a fit and become depressed (which I admit, I did do for about 2 minutes) or choose to trust once again in God's perfect timing. Thankfully, God worked in our hearts and we chose the latter. So, no more excited trips to check the mail, at least until December. Maybe we would get a nice Christmas present.

So I was going to the mail today, thinking "why am I even checking the mail? Our certificate won't be here until December." Lo and behold, there were not one, but two amazing gifts in the mail. One - our marriage certificate! Ah! Crazy! Two - a gift of $100 from one of my good friends in Moscow, Idaho. Crazy! God is so, so good. I wonder if He enjoys giving huge surprises like this. I am sure He does.

We are finally ready to start selling our t-shirts! Thank you to everyone who has expressed interest in purchasing one. They are brown with tan writing...the design is shown above.

This is how it works...(1) Decide on a size.(2) We are asking for a $20.00 minimum donation. You can pay with a credit card via Paypal (click on the "Add to Cart" link below, email us the size you would like), hand it to us in person or send it in the mail (please contact us via phone or email if you need our mailing address).(3) After we have at least 25 shirts ordered we will send off the order to the wonderful family who is actually making the t-shirts and is also adopting from Ethiopia. It will take 2-3 weeks from the time we send the order off.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Still waiting for our marriage certificate....I spent a long 1.5 hours on the phone trying to get a hold of the Vital Statistics Office to no avail. Everything is pretty much waiting on our marriage certificate...

But! Onto bigger and better things (sort of). We have entered fundraising mode! We are going to be selling t-shirts designed by a family also adopting from Ethiopia, who, by the way, just received their referral for a baby girl. Exciting! We are also planning a benefit concert, hopefully, when the Brownlees return. This is in the early, early planning stages - so early that we aren't quite sure if it will happen.

Much of this sudden spurt of creative activity and planning is due to a wonderful group of ladies from our church who I meet with every other week. I confessed my frustration with our various roadblocks, mostly financial, and they were so incredibly supportive and bursting with great ideas and tons of encouragement. I left that meeting feeling throughly rebuked (by our patient and gracious God) about doubting God's provision for this adoption. And I also didn't realize how eager our community is to help us and be a part of the process. Praise the Lord for excellent community!